A rule abolished in 1852, and still in effect
Kentucky's approach to spousal real estate dates back to 1852, when the legislature abolished the old common-law rule that automatically gave a surviving spouse the entirety of jointly held property. That change has continued in substantially the same form ever since, and it's now codified at KRS § 381.050: real estate conveyed to a husband and wife creates a tenancy in common by default — unless a right of survivorship is expressly provided for in the conveyance itself.
Once created, a will can't undo it
Where a conveyance does expressly create a mutual right to the entirety by survivorship between spouses, Kentucky protects that arrangement strongly: no provision in either spouse's will can be construed to defeat the surviving spouse's right to the entirety by survivorship. Once the survivorship right is properly created in the deed, a later change of heart expressed only in a will doesn't undo it.
Joint tenants can usually walk away on their own
Beyond the marital context, Kentucky lets a joint tenant unilaterally partition — essentially sever — their own interest in real property during their lifetime, simply by recording a deed or other instrument that expresses that intent with the county clerk in the county where the property is located. Once recorded, the partitioning tenant's interest converts into a tenancy in common with the remaining joint tenants, ending the survivorship relationship as to that share.
The marital home exception
Here's the distinctive carve-out: residential real property owned exclusively by a husband and wife as joint tenants with a right of survivorship, and actually occupied by them as their principal residence, cannot be partitioned this way by either spouse acting alone. Kentucky specifically protects the family home from this kind of unilateral severance, even though the same couple's second home, a rental property, or any non-principal-residence real estate they co-own wouldn't get this same protection.
Why this protection matters in practice
Without this carve-out, one spouse could, in theory, record a simple deed and quietly convert their share of the family home from a survivorship joint tenancy into an ordinary tenancy in common — ending the other spouse's expectation of automatically inheriting the whole property. Kentucky's principal-residence exception closes off that specific maneuver for the marital home, while still allowing ordinary joint tenants — including spouses co-owning other property — to unilaterally partition elsewhere.
A different route for real estate that isn't jointly titled
None of this changes the fact that Kentucky has no transfer-on-death deed for real estate that isn't already jointly titled this way. See our guide to Kentucky's near-miss TOD deed legislation, including how close it came to passing in 2026.